A Newcastle enterprise and community hub is to play its part in a national Alzheimer’s awareness campaign.

The Beacon, on Westgate Road, is to host an awareness-raising session by the Alzheimer’s Society to promote its Dementia Friends initiative, which aims to enlist a million people nationally to assist sufferers.

The society’s current high-profile television campaign sees actors Ray Winstone and Simon Pegg joining members of the public in singing The Beatles’ song With A Little Help From My Friends.

The 45-minute meeting, at 3pm on Friday, will be attended by Newcastle Central Labour MP Chi Onwurah, as guest of the Alzheimer’s Society. Dementia Friends aims to highlight the condition and how sufferers can be helped by friends and neighbours day-to-day, from being directed to the right bus to passing information to others. Alzheimer’s Society regional operations manager, Hazel Cuthbertson said: “People with dementia sometimes need a helping hand to go about their daily lives and feel included in their community.

“Dementia Friends is this country’s biggest ever project to change the way the nation thinks, talks and acts about dementia.”